Louisiana State Penitentiary

At the Louisiana State Penitentiary, better known as Angola, people are serving life without parole sentences in greater numbers than in any other prison in the country. With so many prisoners passing away on the inside, funeral processions have become a tradition of their own. Lloyd Bone has been in Angola for 46 years now, and serves as the prison’s funeral hearse carriage driver. In this edition of NOLA Life Stories, in the noisy Mule Barn at Angola, Mr. Bone describes how he found his calling and what it means to him.

Prisons are built on the supposition that time, discipline and routine transform inmates into new people. Nelson Davis has lived with this idea since 1980, when he arrived at the Louisiana State Penitentiary to fulfill a life sentence.

In January, 1995 Burl Cain became warden of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. In his 20 years on the job, Cain became practically synonymous with the infamous prison plantation, known both for sweeping reforms based in a Christian ministry at the prison, and for frequent controversies over business deals involving inmate labor, goods and services.

At age 17, Henry Montgomery went to jail for killing a deputy in Baton Rouge. He's been in jail ever since, serving a life sentence in Angola penitentiary with no possibility for parole.

On Tuesday the Supreme Court hears a case bearing his name: Montgomery v. Louisiana. Lawyers will make their arguments before the court about mandatory life sentencing for juveniles, specifically who should get a chance at freedom.

Glenn Ford, the Shreveport man exonerated last year after spending 30 years on death row, died yesterday.

Ford was 33 years old when he was wrongfully convicted of killing a Shreveport jeweler and sent to solitary confinement on death row at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. Nearly three decades later, the longest-serving death row inmate in the country was released.

Ford petitioned the state for compensation for his wrongful conviction. He received only $20 for a bus ride.

When Earl K. Long Hospital closed nearly two years ago, LSU’s private partner in Baton Rouge — Our Lady of the Lake — took over patient care, but refused to take care of inmates. That meant a whole lot of scrambling for Angola Warden Burl Cain.

The state corrections department says the only way it can lower heat levels on Louisiana's death row to a federal judge's requirements is by installing air conditioning.

U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson ruled in December that death row gets so hot it violates U.S. constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment. He demanded a plan to cool the cells so the heat index never goes above 88 degrees.

Windows and fans are currently the primary sources of ventilation on death row.

The Angola 3 refers to three men convicted of murdering a prison guard at the Louisiana State Penitentiary more than 40 years ago, in 1972. Robert King, Herman Wallace, and Albert Woodfox were accused of the crime, and then held mostly in solitary confinement for decades.

King’s conviction was overturned in 2001, and this month a federal judge released Herman Wallace, saying he did not receive a fair trial. Wallace died three days later in New Orleans from liver cancer.